This is likely my last or second-to-last post for 2017, so I’ve decided to have a bit of fun! One of the best things about traveling is getting to learn more about other cultures – or, as Mark Twain once put it:

“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime.”

The holidays are an especially good occasion for such exploration, and SB and I have definitely taken to trying to learn more about Iceland’s Christmas traditions. In this post I’ll share what I’ve learned, though the obvious caveat here is that I don’t know Icelandic, so I’m mostly relying on translations and interpretations of other people. That said, I’ve relied almost exclusively on materials written in English by Icelanders, so hopefully I don’t share any egregiously incorrect information! So let’s get started!

The first thing to know about Iceland’s Christmas (Jól) traditions is that they can trace their lineage well into the mythos of Icelandic folklore. These are, by and large, not modern tales woven to sell you Christmas cards. They’ve certainly been streamlined, modified, combined, and clarified over the years – but the basic foundation is extremely old. These customs are also much more… “old world,” than those cuddly feel-good Christmas tales which have largely been adopted into mainstream U.S. culture. If you thought coal was cruel, how does being torn to shreds by a giant cat sound? Yep.

I, however, find these tales to be far more interesting – indeed, the older more “raw” versions of classical tales which lack their contemporary filters often appeal to me far more than their Hallmark Channel counterparts. The core messages are still roughly the same: be kind, love your family, and be festive. The difference here is that yo’ ass gets eaten alive if you’re naughty. Hard lands breed hard men.

So, with that framework in mind, let’s discuss how things work. Here I should probably note that a lot of the modern iterations of these characters stems from Jóhannes úr Kötlum’s 1932 poetry book, Jólin Koma (“Christmas Is Coming”). So while there are a lot of different very-very-old tales from which these characters are woven, that modern source is the primary basis for this post.

First off, clear your mind of Santa – he wouldn’t last a night in the harsh world of Iceland’s folktales. Instead, think of the 13 “Yule Lads” also known as the Yuletide-Lads or Yulemen – or in Icelandic, jólasveinarnir or jólasveinar. These 13 “lads” are trolls (or half trolls, not entirely sure as different sources referred to them as both) who come to visit the human population of Iceland around the holidays. The Yule Lads make up, what I would call, the crux of the Christmas festivities here in Iceland. But in order to fully understand the importance of the Yule Lads, we must first discuss their mother, Grýla.

Grýla is a troll/giantess who is said to currently live in a cave somewhere in the Dimmuborgir lava fields (which, as you will soon see, is somewhat fittingly where Satan came crashing down from Heaven in Icelandic Christian folklore).

Here Grýla lives with her somewhat lackadaisical third husband and father of the Yule Lads, the troll Leppalúði – but we’ll talk more about him in a second. Grýla is noteworthy for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that she is very, very old. She was first referenced in text during the 1200s, so it’s not unlikely that she’s even older than that. Grýla’s death has been noted more than once, but the old troll seems to know to cheat death itself, because she just keeps coming back to plague the Icelanders, specifically Icelandic children – and by plague I mean drag them screaming into the blackness and eating them alive.

The good news is that Grýla apparently only goes on her carnivorous quest around Christmas, meaning that your chances of meeting a terrible fate at her hands are restricted to at least a small slice of the year. Further good news, Grýla can be staved off simply by resisting the urge to be naughty. Due to some mythological rule-set, or perhaps just a very odd sense of morality, Grýla only eats bad children. If you found the prospect of coal to be a lukewarm deterrent to engaging in the oh-so-much-fun act of being naughty, perhaps a savage death is a bit more of a barrier to naughtiness.

Now, if you might be thinking that Grýla’s husband Leppalúði is likely to be just as malicious of a character. Turns out, not so much. I mean, he looks mean and probably isn’t the type of creature you’d want to run into in a dark cave, but in comparison to Grýla he’s quite tame – and apparently quiet lazy (or at the very least, aloof).

Now, with a wife like Grýla it’s not surprising that he definitely appears to be the submissive partner in the relationship. Add in the fact that Grýla just up and ate her first husband (and let’s be real, likely her second husband too) and you get an environment in which ole’ Leppalúði has probably learned to keep his trap shut and just tend to the cave and the children like a good husband. Indeed, Leppalúði – at least from what I’ve read – seems to be a bit of a (comparatively) mild-mannered homebody who mostly keeps the feck out of Grýla’s way (can you blame him?) and who probably spends most of his time dealing with the Yule Lad’s antics. In some ways the Yule Lads might be described as the balance between Grýla’s evil antics and Leppalúði’s buffoonery. The good news for us humans is that Leppalúði doesn’t seem to go hunting for people in the same fashion as his wife does.

That’s not to say that Grýla is the only bad news. While her husband might be tame, and while the Yule Lads are, as we will soon discuss, prone to mischief as opposed to murder, Grýla also owns a giant cat known as the Yule Cat (Jólakötturinn or Jólaköttur).

Now let’s be clear, this is not your average domestic cat. The Yule Cat might better be described as a “monster” in that it is huge and hungry for humans. Whereas its master (Grýla) preys on naughty children, the Yule Cat hunts down and ravages those who haven’t gotten any new clothes to wear prior to Christmas Eve. Oh, and lest you big-people think you are safe, the Yule Cat eats adults too – though naturally children are of course also on the menu!

So now you’ve got a nice picture of Mom ‘n Pop and their carnivorous cat, so let’s discuss the real stars of the show, the Yule Lads.

There are, in the modern iterations, 13 canonical Yule Lads (though this number has drastically varied over the lads’ long and storied history – see my comment about Jóhannes úr Kötlum above). Unlike their baby-eating mother, lazy father, and deadly pet, the Yule Lads care much more about being mischievous and having fun (mostly for them, less so the people they annoy) around Christmas time. A lot of this stems from the fact that their mother keeps them locked away for most of the year, unable to explore the great outdoors. It’s only around Christmas that she lets them out to play – or perhaps Leppalúði just doesn’t have the energy to corral the Yule Lads while Grýla and the Yule Cat are off eating people. Regardless of the exact manner in which they are able to get out and about, the 13 Yule Lads start to “come to town” one at a time on December 12th, and each Lad has a different set of characteristics which define the antics they get themselves into.

The 13 lads, with English translations, as well as their arrival and departure dates are listed below.

Icelandic name

English translation

Description

Arrival

Departure

Stekkjarstaur

Sheep-Cote Clod

Harasses sheep, but is impaired by his stiff peg-legs.

12 December

25 December

Giljagaur

Gully Gawk

Hides in gullies, waiting for an opportunity to sneak into the cowshed and steal milk.

13 December

26 December

Stúfur

Stubby

Abnormally short. Steals pans to eat the crust left on them.

14 December

27 December

Þvörusleikir

Spoon-Licker

Steals Þvörur (a type of a wooden spoon with a long handle – I. þvara) to lick. Is extremely thin due to malnutrition.

15 December

28 December

Pottaskefill

Pot-Scraper

Steals leftovers from pots.

16 December

29 December

Askasleikir

Bowl-Licker

Hides under beds waiting for someone to put down their “askur” (a type of bowl with a lid used instead of dishes), which he then steals.

17 December

30 December

Hurðaskellir

Door-Slammer

Likes to slam doors, especially during the night.

18 December

31 December

Skyrgámur

Skyr-Gobbler

A Yule Lad with an affinity for Skyr.

19 December

1 January

Bjúgnakrækir

Sausage-Swiper

Would hide in the rafters and snatch sausages that were being smoked.

20 December

2 January

Gluggagægir

Window-Peeper

A snoop who would look through windows in search of things to steal.

21 December

3 January

Gáttaþefur

Doorway-Sniffer

Has an abnormally large nose and an acute sense of smell which he uses to locate laufabrauð.

22 December

4 January

Ketkrókur

Meat-Hook

Uses a hook to steal meat.

23 December

5 January

Kertasníkir

Candle-Stealer

Follows children in order to steal their candles (which in those days were made of tallow and thus edible).

24 December

6 January

As you can see from the table, each Lad arrives on a separate date, and they stay “in town” until all of them have arrived, upon which they start departing – again one at a time – back to their mountain home. In total, this means that the Yule Lads are causing chaos in some format or another from December 12th all the way until January 6th.

If this story has seemed a bit… unpleasant.. thus far, what with the deadly endeavors of Grýla and the Yule Cat, coupled with the Yule Lads’ seeds of chaos, and Leppalúði’s “meh whatever” attitude about all of it, then have no fear, things perk up from here. While the Yule Lads have changed a bit over the centuries, their current manifestations are also known for bringing presents to those who act properly! Of course at a basic level you need to be good (lest their mom find you), and you also need new clothes (lest their cat eat you), but also need to leave one of your shoes on the window sill of your room to let the most-recently arrived Yule Lad know you are there! If you really want their good graces, you will also leave them a treat – but make no mistake, this isn’t a one-size-fits all cookies-and-milk fallback. Each Yule Lad has their own preferred “treat” and you don’t want to mix them up! Some are easy to remember, for instance Skyrgámur (Skyr-Gobbler) likes Skyr most of all. Whereas others, like Þvörusleikir (Spoon-licker) have less obvious tastes, such as carrots . Still, others, like Stúfur (Stubby) are likely to eat whatever you leave them without much fuss. In addition to food, you can also leave certain Lads items such as spoons (wooden!) or candles.

If you follow the proper protocol, you’ll likely to wake up to a present/treat of your own in the shoe you left out (as well as some classical Yule Lad mischief). However, if you don’t follow the proper traditions and/or are naughty, you’ll just get an old potato! An old potato might not be much, but it’s better than being eaten alive, though the potato is probably a warning sign that you need to start cleaning up your act real quick-like, lest Mommy Dearest find you.

It’s also important to note that the Yule Lads, much like their foreign counterparts, only come at night. Being trolls (or half trolls) and living in a dark cave most of the year has made their eyes sensitive to the light, so be sure not to leave too many lights on when you leave out your shoes and treat – the Yule Lads see far better in the dark! If you do find yourself face to face with a Yule Lad, a surefire way to get their good graces is to wish them a Gleðileg Jól (Happy Christmas).

It’s also worth noting that if you follow the proper procedures and have a bit of faith, that the Yule Lads have been known to travel far beyond Iceland’s coasts to leave presents for those who tempt them with especially good treats. So if you aren’t in Iceland, but still want to participate in some Yule Lad fun, you know what to do – just watch out for Grýla and her monstrous cat.

So there you go, a nice primer on the Yule Lads and their crazy family.

But that’s not all that goes in Iceland during the holidays. While the Yule Lads provide the backdrop to the season, there are a few other events and traditions that are widespread.

The first is Aðventa (The Advent) which starts on the fourth Sunday before Christmas and is the “official” start of the season in Iceland. It’s also when most of the Christmas lights begin to appear. In addition to modern lights, traditional Aðventa came in two formats: an Advent Wreath with four candles (one for each Sunday of Advent), and a seven-candle candelabra which was, being quite bright, was believed to keep out the winter’s darkness.

If this talk of lighting has you wondering about Christmas trees, then have no fear, Iceland has those too – though they are a more recent phenomenon in the manner you probably imagine a Christmas tree. For most of Iceland’s settled history there really weren’t that many trees that could be cut down, so the Christmas trees were made of wood scrapped together from other things, and then mounted with juniper branches and candles. As Iceland “opened” to the world (and attempts at reforestation began), real live Christmas trees became more accessible, and today most Icelanders use Christmas trees which appear much like those you’d find elsewhere – and they predominantly use real trees as opposed to fake ones. One interesting note is that the Christmas trees themselves often weren’t (and aren’t) lit in the home until just a day or two before Christmas, but the lights are left up until January 6th (which just so happens to be the last day the Yule Lads are around).

Second, I’m sure you’re wondering about food. Well, there’s all sorts of it, just like anyplace else. A few notable examples are the vast array of cookies which get baked, as well as the staple of Laufabrauð – which, directly translated, means “leaf bread.” The baking of the Laufabrauð is a family event, and great care is put into making the Laufabrauð as fancy as possible – sometimes it ends up so fancy that it gets turned into decorations as opposed to being eaten! Laufabrauð is generally served during both Christmas and New Year’s, paired with delicious smjör (butter).

There is also a traditional drink which is a mixture of locally produced malt (Maltöl) and orange soda (Appelsín). The mixture, Malt og Appelsín, is so popular that it can be purchased pre-mixed as Jólabland (Christmas Mix), though many Icelanders still take the time to mix it themselves. The exact ratio of malt to soda is hotly debated, and that’s territory I shan’t risk entering. 🙂

While foodstuffs beyond the sweet include the scrumptious fare that you might imagine for Iceland, including: herring, smoked and cured salmon, reindeer pâté, smoked lamb, roast pork with rind, rack of ham, turkey, and more – December 23rd brings about something a bit more intriguing, Skötuveislur or fermented skate. Skate is a type fish, which as you might have guessed, has been fermented. Traditionally this one done by sealing the skate in a closed container for a month or more (sound familiar?). The resulting dish is known just as much for its extremely pungent smell as its taste. In fact, I’ve been told that the smell is so difficult to get out of your house that a lot of people opt just to go get Skötuveislur from a restaurant these days. I’ve yet to try this delicacy, and honestly after kæstur hákarl I can’t say I’ll be seeking it out. That said, it’s still a strong tradition, so if you find yourself in Iceland on December 23rd you’ll know what that pervasive smell in the air is!

Perhaps the smell of fermented skate brings about thoughts of the after life. As on December 24th (and on New Year’s Eve) Icelanders remember their departed loved ones. They do so by visiting cemeteries and leaving candles on the graves of the departed. One of the most aesthetic cemeteries during this time is Hólavallagarður, a cemetery from 1832 which overlooks Tjörnin – so not very far from us at all.

There’s also the “Christmas Book Flood” which you may have seen as the following image floating around social media.

In Icelandic this is refereed to as Jólabókaflóð (The book flood of Christmas), and it’s largely true to the tidbit being passed around the interwebs. The one big difference is that it’s not quite as confined as the image makes it seem (its more chronologically far-reaching), but it’s still a big deal (and yes chocolate is a part of it). A few weeks ago SB and I noticed that the stores were starting to accumulate a TON of books – we had no idea what was going on at first, but now we do! And for reference, I mean, literal tons of books.

Once you’ve got your new collection of books, you have to be careful, as the holiday season brings bonfires to Iceland – and I mean a lot of bonfires. Long before fireworks made it to the arctic north, bonfires served essentially the same purpose – the symbolic burning of the old year, old sins, and the celebration of bright futures to come. The many “brennur” (burns) are community events and occur mostly on New Year’s Eve and The Thirteenth Night. Also, these aren’t just piddly little campfires, these are legitimate bonfires.

While fireworks have since joined the ranks of Icelandic New Year’s traditions, the bonfires remain.

Finally, as the season winds down, we come to Þrettándinn, the “Thirteenth Night” (the equivalent of the Anglo-Saxon “Twelfth Night” you might be familiar with).

Like New Year’s Eve, bonfires are prevalent during Þrettándinn – but Þrettándinn is also a night of great, ancient, mystery. In Icelandic folklore, Þrettándinn caused strange and mythical beings to stir from their slumber. Many of these awakenings could be dangerous for humans (such as talking cows which would drive those who listened to them mad), and others, such as seals which shed their skins and walked among men, were just downright creepy. Þrettándinn, the official end of the season, also sees elves come out en masse (including the elf “king” and “queen”), as well as other mythical creatures and beasts. It’s also the final day the Yule Lads are in town, and if you make it through the night without falling victim to one of the various dangers of the dark, you’ll also know that Grýla and the Yule Cat have retreated back into the hinterlands for the year.

Like most other aspects of the season in Iceland, while evil and mischief lurk in the shadows, there is a great deal of symbolism to light, family, and the community. So stay close to the fire’s warm glow and those who you care about, and you’re likely to find yourself safe, full of delicious food, and spiritually satisfied even against the long dark night of Þrettándinn.

And that, dear friends, is Dinosaur Bear’s coverage of Jól. This is of course, not an even remotely exhaustive list, and as with any compilation of traditions, beliefs and practices will vary from one family to the next. It also leaves out a few important events, but this is a nice overview to the season, from an outsiders perspective with a focus on what seems especially “unique” to yours truly. I hope that if you’re new to all of this like me, you’ve found it especially interesting, and, conversely, if this is what you grew up with, that I didn’t get anything too out of whack. 🙂

In closing, here is a nice “cheat sheet” of the cast-of-characters (sans Yule Cat) referenced within this post. I’ve left the image uncompressed for easier viewing.

If you’d like an English translation of the poem upon which the modern iteration of the Yule Lads are based, click here.

Until next time,
Gleðileg jól og farsælt nýtt ár!

-Taco

Note: Unlike most Dinosaur Bear posts, the photos in this post are taken from the public websites of other photographers or organizations. All photographic/artistic works represented here remain the property of their respective owners – and as a reminder Dinosaur Bear is a non-monetized blog with no ads or other revenue sources. If you are the owner of one of the photos/works and would like it to be removed, please let me know.

I don’t have any big adventures to share, but I figured an Icelandic Thanksgiving was worth a post – plus I have a bit of a tradition in chronicling our “Turkey Day” festivities. 🙂

Thanksgiving in Iceland is interesting, because there is no Thanksgiving in Iceland. That’s not to say they don’t have something of an equivalent, but insofar as Thanksgiving as we Murkans know it, on the date we know it, there is no such thing. Of course this isn’t my first time celebrating a U.S. holiday while abroad, and the nice thing about Thanksgiving is that in order to celebrate you really only need two things: the ability to give thanks and food. Neither of which are in short supply in Iceland.

Plus, if you associate Thanksgiving with chilly November air, then there’s definitely no shortage of that here. In fact things have been downright cold lately. There was a morning last week where I was walking to the gym around 6:55am that might have been the coldest I’ve felt in years. At that time of day (and for a few hours afterward) it’s still pitch black, and when combined with the wind it was pretty terrible. Yet we’ve adjusted more easily to the cold (being used to it and all) than we have the darkness – for instance with the cold you can always have a nice hot cup of tea!

Though I guess the increased darkness has also generated more aurora borealis viewing opportunities. We’ve seen some awesome light displays over the past several weeks. While we still haven’t taken the time to learn how to photograph them with our good camera, they were so strong a couple of weeks ago that even our cell phone cameras could capture them.

Due to our lackluster camera skills (and the fact my phone is horrible in low light conditions) those photos only capture about 30% of the total lights that were present, but hey, at least we actually captured something this time! The lights are more frequent and stronger during the late fall and winter period, so hopefully we’ll get better at capturing them. Speaking of which, it might not be winter yet but we’ve had snow for awhile now.

In fact the first round of snow moved into our area around October 11th (though it didn’t move into the city itself until November 9th), and we’ve had snow in some capacity since then. It makes for some pretty mornings though!

There’s always something nice about a freshly fallen snow.

The downside is that we don’t always have sunlight – in fact it’s usually cloudy. So when coupled with the fact that the sun comes up less and less, the snowy landscapes can often get very, very grey.

But the animal priends’ don’t mind.

Nor do the snowmen. Icelandic Snowmen that is.

By and large we’ve adjusted to it. Some days are definitely worse than others.

It was like this pretty much the entire day – notice the complete lack of Perlan in the distance.

But other days kind of a have a winter-wonderland type of whimsy to them.

Chuck and Chica’s house.

That of course brings me to the holidays. Despite the lack of Thanksgiving, Christmas is beginning to pop up around Reykjavík – for example, Christmas Trees.

And also wreaths, lots of wreaths.

Oh and in case you were wondering, yes that is Tjörnin – frozen enough that people are using the lake as a walkway.

The holidays have also crept into other areas, such as our milk cartons.

SB and I agreed that it tasted like those old-fashioned strawberry hard candies. You know the ones. Tristen also liked the manly Santa Claus on the can.

So, in order to prepare for the holidays we took care of a few things at the apartment. Namely cleaning some harder to clean areas. The plant buddies also got some new soil and new pots!

They’ve also since moved to the window sill in our bedroom to hopefully get a bit more of the limited sunlight we have. Another big event was bath time for the boys. Bath time is a huge ordeal. Valentino loves it, Tristen hates it, Pig just gets dirty again within 10 seconds, and Pigsten, well Pigsten is easy at least. Part of what makes it such an ordeal is that the boys take so long to try. Even with a fan it took us 10+ hours to dry them after I hand-washed them. So, lacking a fan, it took a whopping ~30 hours for them to fully dry.

Here they are shortly after getting cleaned in the sink – sitting on our bathroom stool/shelf/whatever (from the basement! 😀 ) in the early stages of drying. As you can tell Tristen was less than enthused. Here they are about 20 some hours later, much drier and enjoying a nice tea next to the radiator (with Pig doing yoga, of course).

The photo of the boys sitting next to the radiator in the bedroom reminded me – I had an interesting home improvement moment two weeks ago. It involved this:

That’s an array of networking and electrical outlets in our bedroom. The network ports don’t work, and haven’t since we moved in – so I’m not sure why they are there (the ones in the living room do work) but the electrical outlets work fine. The issue wasn’t anything to do with the ports/outlets themselves, but rather an extremely annoying noise that would occasionally come from the wall around/in the array. This noise had occurred shortly after we moved in and occurred on and off for a few days then stopped for awhile. However it started back up about two weeks ago and persisted, without fail, for nearly 48 hours (as in, it didn’t stop for a single moment).

The noise sounded like a muffled “knock” – so since the noise was coming from near a radiator I figured it might be pipes. However, after it kept me up half the night I decided the next day to investigate. I came to realize that the noise occurred exactly every 3 seconds (give or take -.002 seconds I suppose, if you want to be super accurate). I tested it 26 times using magical technology, and it was always 3 seconds. Having spent the past 3 years in a 90 year old Boston building I am used to pops, groans, and knocks – and they were never to precisely uniform on time. This knocked out the usual building-y stuff (and also our neighbors, who, while they bang around continuously, do so in an irregular manner).

Since I ‘sperg out over stuff like this and am super noise sensitive, the night of the second day I just got frustrated, grabbed the IKEA tool set and went about pulling the whole thing out of the wall. I was determined that the noise was coming from directly behind the array – and turns out I was right. After dismantling the whole shebang, I realized what was happening – and it was unlike anything I’ve experienced before.

Basically, within the array there are two holes on the network side that lead into the interior of the wall. These are used to run the Ethernet cables. However, cables are only ran on one side (and again they don’t work) so the other side is just an open little hard plastic tube/hole into the wall. This is where the noise was coming from. See, our apartment is very air tight (concrete + good window seals). If the windows are closed and you open the door, your ears pop (seriously). Similarly, if you open the windows in odd orders the pressure will sometimes close another window. And, best of all, if it’s really windy outside, sometimes it’s insanely difficult to open a window or door if it opens outwards (so all but out front door). I’m not kidding, one night I put my full 175lbs into our balcony door and it wouldn’t open (we also had severe winds, but the pressure also created suction). So, my theory as to what was happening is that this little hole in the networking side was acting as a pressure valve between the pressure in our apartment, and the pressure in the interior of the interior wall (which is drywall and studs, unlike the exterior walls, which are concrete).

This only occurred under certain atmospheric conditions (thus why it didn’t happen constantly) and the “knock” was in fact a little air/pressure bubble “bursting” in that tube as the pressure equalized and then was imbalanced again, over and over and over – thus the nearly perfect 3 second loop. How did I fix it? I shoved some puddy up in the whole and then slapped a piece of tape over it. 😀

No more noise, and it’s been silent ever since – and I need all the silence I can get in this place of parties and screaming until 4am.

ANYWAYS, got a bit off topic there. Back to Thanksgiving. Our Thanksgiving was actually the day after Thanksgiving, because that is what worked better for our schedule, plus when there is no formal holiday you can pick your own days. 😛

As if its needs saying, Thanksgiving = beer.

Props to SB and Tristen for carting this mother-load home!

Yes, after entirely running out of beer (even near-beer) we have since replenished the supply in the Taco household (complete with a bottle of wine too – from Argentina, we are cultured folks). Thanksgiving also = turkey, but we don’t have access to turkey, so we went with chicken, but we don’t need a big chicken, nor do we have space to even store one, so we went with a little chicken!

Yep, an official Icelandic chicken! For seasoning I had some of the usual stuff, garlic, pepper, onion, carrots, etc. But I also tried stuffing it with cheese and using a new (to us) sauce from the U.K. – HP Sauce. To me it kind of tasted like A1 sauced mixed with Worcestershire sauce, it was good.

We also had some MASSIVE Icelandic sweet taters.

The bird and the tatoes were coupled with snow peas (couldn’t find green beans), and rolls (which ended up having cheese inside – yay language surprises!) paired with some rhubarb jam!

Here’s a nice “before” photo of our Kjúklingur.

And then an “after” shot, complete with copious amounts of anxious Tristen.

In case you were wondering how snow peas worked out, they were really yummy.

Those are diced hotdogs (which are really good here), plus the usual seasonings. I was really pleased with how they came out. As for the massive sweet potatoes, we mashed those up and combined them with some Icelandic butter (amazing), Skyr (Icelandic yogurt – also amazing), and a small bit of honey. They were delicious – though I am biased as sweet potatoes are probably my favorite part of Thanksgiving these days.

Naturally no Thanksgiving is complete without desert! We don’t have a pie pan – and in fact pies don’t really seem to be a thing here (we seriously haven’t seen a single pie) so we opted for something a bit more unique, a chocolate-crunch layer cake!

All in all it was a wonderful little ole’ Thanksgiving in Iceland. Sure we have no chairs so we sat on budget kitchen chair cushions on the floor while eating off a coffee table we found in the basement, but the important thing is that we had good company, and the food was pretty dang good too. 🙂

What’s kind of funny is that the entire price of the meal – which we ate on for three days – was still less than it would be to eat out a single time here in Reykjavík, craziness! Heck, our bird was only ~664 ISK (~$6.46). We were smart shoppers and deal hunted, as usual!

But yes, despite the fact that our neighbors proceeded to keep me awake until 3:30 am that night with their stupidity, I am thankful for many things. Yes, though I do indeed complain nearly constantly on this blog, I am generally quite thankful (and tend to complain less in person, though not much ; ) ).

Here’s a few things I am thankful for:

SB, the boys, our plants, that I’ve probably secured a supervisor for my thesis, my health, beer, being brave enough to take chances, my persistence (read: stubbornness), my computer still working, my pillow, coffee, polar bears, squirrels, my human family, a few planned adventures (more on those later!), that my income-based repayment application got approved so I won’t literally go bankrupt within 5 months, Steam sales, my 2 human friends (that might sound kinda sad, but I have impossibly high friend standards), Chuck and Chica, Iceland’s housing stipend, Meem letting me do work for her, Oatly oat milk, puffins, getting to watch airplanes take off, Charles XII of Sweden, Carmex, ear plugs, my ability to do Crow (yoga), indoor plumbing, my 7 year old backpack from Wal-Mart that has held up better than most designer backpacks would, my 7 year old Wal-mart folders which are rugged but still kicking, my passion for history, the person online who taught me how to open a beer using a quarter without bending the bottle cap, my S5 phone still working, my laptop still working, echinacea goldenseal, squeegees, sunglasses, Bónus, guerrilla tape, Iceland’s awesome tap water, Thomas IV, that my headset still works, my 11 year old slippers, soft-close cabinet hinges, my $3 mixing bowl, people who throw away things that I can take, and lastly, SB and I’s mutual desire to explore the world.

And those are just the things from the top of my head. 🙂

I hope you all had an enjoyable Thanksgiving, whether it was an “official holiday” or a “l337 underground T-Givn’ holiday” abroad.